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Meeting the Participants

Steve, sixty-four, Essex

Occupation: Retired insurance professional

Political history: Typically Conservative, apart from when he resided in a left-leaning London borough and voted for the SDP

Amuse bouche: His focus in insurance was hostage situations: People often claim that insurance is dull, but it’s far from it when you’re discussing rescuing people from South Korea because the North Koreans have opened the missile silos”

Evie, twenty-five, London

Occupation: Graduate in psychology

Political history: In her home country, New Zealand, she voted a combination of Labour and Green

Interesting fact: Eva has worked as a singer on cruise ships; her longest trip was half a year, which is a long time to be at sea

Initial impressions

She: Steve appeared there to have a nice time, to be open

He: She came across as a very intelligent, well-spoken, pleasant person

Eva: I had a caprese salad, pasta with fungi, and a rich sweet treat, it was delicious

Key disagreement

She: He was certainly on the side of immigration being reduced. He believes that UK residents who are native to the area, not just Caucasian Britons, face limited access to the essential services, because more and more people are entering. However I just disagree that the figures are so problematic

Steve: I’m for qualified migrants, I don’t want to live in a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant country with tepid ale. But I believe that authorities have exploited immigration to fill the jobs they struggle to staff without raising wages. Pay are kept low, so taxes have to be minimized, so we can’t do things better – spend more money on child support, on education, on innovation

Eva: I am not deeply informed of the EU referendum, because I was 16 and abroad when it happened. He explained it to me in a new light. He told me about EU labor migrants – candidates could arrive in the UK and only be paid the salary of the their nation of origin

Steve: Macron spent 24 months getting the EU to abolish the scheme; it was revised in 2018. Before that, migrant laborers coming in were undercutting British workers. Under Gordon Brown, it was petroleum staff that were imported; later it’s been hospitality, agriculture. She grasped that, because she’d worked on a cruise ship and said she was paid a lot more than workers from other countries

Common ground

Steve: It would be ideal to have a alternative power, transition from fossil fuels. I disapprove of environmental harm, I value fresh atmosphere, I appreciate rural areas. We found consensus on a lot of that. But I said, “What do you think of the Scandinavian nation?” Their energy revenues soared after Ukraine started, they used that money to develop eco-friendly systems

Eva: So we’re dependent on their petroleum. You can see that’s not a good way to go about things. He was supportive of continuing our own oil exploration for the limited quantity we’ll need in the future. I partially concur with him. We’re still going to use planes. We both think we should be moving towards environmentally friendly options, windfarms and water power

Dessert topics

She: We briefly discussed Islamophobia, though we avoided labeling it. He seemed concerned about extremism coming here – he did mention that a many individuals in Middle Eastern countries were radical, which I didn’t think fair. I think it’s discriminatory to form opinions based on faith

He: I come from the East End. I asked her if she’d been to Whitechapel, and she said it had been modernized. Obviously, I would say that: populated by professionals. But when I go down Chrisp Street market, I appear out of place. People gaze at me because it’s become very Muslim. She had a little look at me about that. I used the word “ghetto”. Eva’s got Polish-Jewish ancestry – she doesn’t like that word, to her it denotes deprivation. I said, “No, it’s an area that becomes their own.” I consented to substitute a different word – maybe community?

Eva: I believe that followers of Islam are really disproportionately shown in the media as doing things wrong. It seems a little bit racist, or xenophobic

Conclusion

He: I think we parted on good terms. We had a embrace at the train stop

She: We both said that we’d had a wonderful evening